Setting Up Chat AI

Chat AI is your always-on website assistant, designed to engage visitors, answer questions, and book meetings without the need for manual scripts or constant updates. By configuring a few simple settings, you can shape how Chat AI learns, speaks, and responds to your audience. This guide walks you through each step of the setup process, enabling you to launch quickly and confidently.

Table of Contents

• How to Set Up Chat AI
  • Knowledge Base
  • Personality
  • Strategy
  • Guidance
  • Testing

How to Set Up Chat AI

Setting up Chat AI is a bit like building a team member from scratch. You’ll start by teaching it what to know, then decide how it should sound, define what goals to watch for, give it rules for sensitive topics, and finally test how it performs. 

All of these pieces come together to form an assistant that feels human, reflects your brand, and drives real results on your website. You can find these Chat AI settings under Chat > Chat AI in your workspace.

Before proceeding, we also recommend checking our Chat AI FAQ documentation for more helpful information!

Knowledge Base

The Knowledge Base is Chat AI’s memory. This is where you load the content that will be used to respond accurately to visitor questions. You can:

• Upload documents like product guides, FAQs, or case studies.
• Add URLs from your website, so the AI can pull directly from live pages.
  Keep resources up to date to ensure responses are always current.

The more relevant content you add, the smarter and more reliable Chat AI becomes.

When adding resources, you have two options available: Website or Files.

From Website

You choose between full domain and subpages or a specific list of website pages. 

For full domain and subpages, it can currently pull a 2-page depth from the parent link. If you need more than this, it is recommended that you add each page individually.

From Files

Simply upload your files.

Personality

This is where you bring Chat AI to life. In the Personality tab, you can:

• Select a name and upload an avatar that aligns with your brand.
• Determine the tone of voice (e.g., professional, casual, friendly).
• Control how long responses should be, short and direct, or more detailed.

These settings help ensure the assistant feels like a natural extension of your team, not a generic bot.

Strategy

Strategies define what Chat AI should look out for during conversations. Think of them as high-level intents, such as:

• Meeting requests: If a visitor types, “I want to book a demo,” the AI should trigger the “Schedule Meeting” action in Chili Piper.
• Pricing questions: If someone asks, “How much is this?” Chat AI recognizes the intent and routes to your pricing page or offers to connect them with a rep.
• Competitor Mentions: If a visitor mentions a competitor, such as “We’re considering competitor X,” Chat AI can trigger a tailored response that highlights your differentiators.

Once detected, these intents trigger specific actions, such as booking a demo, routing to a sales representative, or deflecting an unqualified visitor. You can create and customize strategies to match your business goals.

Guidance

Guidances are playbooks for how Chat AI should handle sensitive or nuanced situations. They give you control over:

• How pricing questions are answered
  • For example, instruct Chat AI not to share dollar amounts directly, but to respond with, “Pricing depends on your team size. Would you like me to connect you with sales?”
• What to say (or not say) about competitors.
  • For example, if someone mentions a competitor, guide Chat AI to highlight your strengths without disparaging competitors. For example: “Many competitors' users use us alongside their CRM because Chili Piper is purpose-built for scheduling and routing.”
• How to redirect support issues appropriately.
  • For example, add guidance that if a visitor says, “I found a bug,” Chat AI should respond, “Sorry to hear that—please email support@yourcompany.com so our team can help you quickly.”

By setting clear Guidances, you ensure every response aligns with your brand voice and business rules.

Testing

Before going live, use the Testing tab to see how Chat AI responds in practice. You can:

1. Type in questions as if you were a visitor. For example:
   1. “Can I see your pricing?”
   2. “I want to book a call.”
   3. “Do you integrate with Chili Piper?”
2. Review the AI’s responses.
3. Mark them as “good” or “bad” to provide feedback.
    

Testing helps you fine-tune Strategies and Guidances until you’re confident Chat AI is handling conversations the way you want.

Once you have Chat AI set up, it’s time to add Chat AI to your Journeys. For more information, refer to - Enable Chat AI in Journeys.